EGYPT

This shit is amazing.What is going to happen? The internet has been blocked since Friday.I've been browsing this: http://werebuild.eu/wiki/Egypt/Main_PageGetting my mind blown by the global community of internet nerds.

I'm reading this epic book about western culture since 1500, and it's wild to contemplate how news used to travel. Even just a couple hundred years ago, we wouldn't have heard anything was going on in Egypt until weeks later at the earliest, probably months. Even further back, it would have been years, or never. Now we hear about it almost instantaneously, and we feel agitated and want to help or do something, but the same distance that used to separate us in actuality still does separate us. In almost every sense of the word.

What does it mean.

Comments

It's so weird that all the media are like, "mmmm.... this is probably bad for business, right?" & "mmmmmm... shit's gonna get weird and Islam-y". Not like, "OMG, these people are so brave and just.... people!"

"Weird" is probably not the right word, 'cause, in fact, it's perfectly normal. It's just kind of depressing that their normality is so relentless.

Mikey, all I really know is: Egypt has been ruled for 30 years by this asshole. There has been widespread oppression and bullshit at the hands of the police, who are seen as basically hired thugs. Freedoms curtailed to the max; gap between rich and poor widened to the max. Just total corrupt government dictator vibe. So then the other day protesters in Tunisia actually successfully ousted their government just by protesting! Which is amazing! Shock waves rolled across the Arab world. Now Egypt is trying to do the same thing. People on the street; shit destroyed; cops firing water canons into crowds. The other day the army (or police? can't remember) announced they weren't going to use force anymore. If you get the military on your side in a revolution, you basically win. So now the government is scrambling. The asshole whose name I can't remember replaced his entire cabinet but most of the people he replaced it with were just old-school assholes still, and the protesters were not fooled. They are demanding a CLEAN SWEEP. Foreigners are choking the airports trying to get out of Egypt. It's madness in the street. The government shut down the internet and all these international hacker organizations are working on helping Egypt communicate anyway--some dispatches are coming out through SHORT WAVE RADIO and then being translated and broadcast by these networks of helpers across the world.

Everyone is worried because Egypt is a really stable zone ("stable" meaning "good for business and Israel; not constantly threatening to start a nuclear war") in the Middle East, it's mostly an ally for Israel and has really helped in the Israel/Palestine "peace" process, so Israel is worried. And if Israel is worried, the U.S. is worried. Basically everyone gets worried whenever there's any "instability" in the Middle East, because of oil and war and jihad, EVEN THOUGH in my opinion that's what the good old U.S. has been exhorting Iraq to do for like 15 years and then totally bailing on them. Whatever.

IT IS EPIC TIMES OVER THERE! If the protesters are successful it is going to have major ramifications for the way stuff happens over there; for Israel; for business. Also everyone is worried because whenever there is a revolution, there's this terrifying moment where it's like anyone could take power, and so obviously there are fears that the Muslim Brotherhood or whatever is going to take over Egypt and turn Egypt into a worse situation than before, not only for Egypt but for the world. There are also opposition groups who are awesome and liberal, however, and the majority of the protesters are demanding DEMOCRACY NOW, so right now I believe it's still any man's game. And anyway the government hasn't fallen yet, right? I haven't checked the news in like 24 hours, probably everything I just said is now obsolete.

I had insomnia in the night and watched CNN and for the first time there was all the pro-Mubarak demonstrators that were clearly just thugs hired by the government and the pros and antis fought all night. Molotov cocktails! Guys on camels riding through whipping people!

It's clear there needs to be a new government/leadership but its really scary not knowing at all who it will be.

The reason we've been such a staunch supporter of Mubarak is because of an old set of presumptions put in place by the rule of his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, who was first to sign a peace treaty with Israel after '67, and the largest proponent for secular governance in the Mideast in a time when Islamic Fundamentalist movements were plotting revolutions of their own. They succeeded in taking down Iran, but were never able to get popular support behind removing Sadat. So they killed him.

Mubarak succeeded him and has been ruling under a constitutionally-provided "special emergency-y'all" clause that has let him rule uncontested for decades. The reason why there is no established opposition party to lead the revolution is because he's basically taken everybody out, politically, and sometimes through use of state force. In theory, the reason why the US has been down with this is because we're afraid that the resulting power vacuum could lead to a new Islamic Fundamentalist rule.

Now we can be sure that this line of reasoning has been for some time now been complete bunkum, and that we've been propping up and arming a dictator just because he's been able to fit neatly into our Iran / Israel / Palestine chessboard.

What has to be totally confusing for our diplomats is that these protesters are young, educated, wearing cool Nikes, calling for democracy, and yet somehow NOT TOTALLY DOWN WITH ISRAEL'S CONTINUING AGGRESSION AGAINST PALESTINE.

love it!love that cartoon.love the pro-democracy-but-anti-Israel confusion. I love that! "Wait, how can you be pro-democracy but anti-Israel's brutal treatment of Palestine?" Ummmmmmmmmmmm YEAH THAT DOESN'T SEEM THAT CONFUSING TO ME. THAT IS A STANCE I MYSELF HOLD.

Wolf: Al Jazeera is not blacked out in the US. I saw that headline on Huffington Post, too. What bullshit. Al Jazeera is simply not carried by most cable networks. There's been no change in that status due to the events in Egypt. You can get Al Jazeera on your computer, or via their awesome iPhone app for your iPhone.